Play Magicka for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup Magicka at 75% off the regular price!*

Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who has thrown the world into turmoil, his foul creations besieging the forces of good.

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play Magicka. If you don't have Steam, you can download it here.

The once wandering wizards have found their way back home in Magicka - Wizards of the Square Tablet, now available for PC. Experience the mobile hit on your squarish and almost certainly, stationary monitor. But fret not, if any wizards still happen to be wandering you can still accidently kill them with cross platform support across all devices.

From the publisher that brought you Magicka, its more Magicka! Wizards of the Square Tablet features the innovative and dynamic spell casting system from the original PC hit. Experience a brand new campaign set prior to the original tale of Magicka. Adventure through the new campaign by yourself, or accidentally obliterate your friends in multiplayer co-op, which supports up to four players! Play together with fellow mages across multiple platforms, which may co-exist in the same game session thanks to a twisted union made possible by dark sorcery!

I don’t think anything else has quite gripped me in the same way this year. The current version of Magicka: Wizard Wars features only one map, and is suffering some network woes, but the Early Access release of Paradox’s arena-PvP reboot of slapstick spell-combinating hit Magicka is shaping up to be a triumph.

Let me combine the magic of words with the arcane energies of meaning, and use a ray of physics to put them all in your face.> (more…)

UPDATE: I am having trouble connecting to games, seems it might be over-subscribed.

And I am going to jump right in, so expect some thoughts on it soon. I’ve been itching to get my hands on Magicka: Wizard Wars – Paradox’s pared down team combat version of Magicka – since I saw it in action at GDC earlier in the year, and I believe it could well be the arena-combat type game that suits my personal sensibilities as a giant dork. Paradox explain: “two teams of four wizards each will do their best to incinerate, refrigerate, and defenestrate one another in chaotic combat, utilizing the versatile, element-combining spell system of Magicka. With friendly fire in full effect, wizards will have to think on their toes and mind their aim as they contend with imps, enemy players, and each other.” A frankly rather weird new trailer creates fanfare for the appearance of the game, which you can see below.

Magicka Wizard Wars, the free-to-play game I once described as a game of Dota 2 in which everyone on both teams is playing Invoker, is now available on Steam Early Access. You can claim your spot as a founder in this arcane altercation with three different tiers, starting at $13. Jumping in at the $20 tier gets you a free copy of Crusader Kings II, which is half of that game's current Steam price.

Other founders rewards include unique robes and weapons, forum avatars, and at the highest tier, some in-game currency and the ability to name your personal imp minion. If you're a little light on cash, possibly because you kinda sorta accidentally lit a public institution on fire while practicing your wizarding last weekend, you can still sign up free for alpha access, and if selected, you'll get a cool staff and weapon for your trouble.

If you're on the fence about Wizard Wars, go back and check out what Tom Senior, Craig Owens, and I had to say about it

Magicka: Wizard Wars is a Spellcasting Action PvP game with the humor and the dynamic realtime spell system of Magicka. Players form teams of four and blaze their way across the battlefield, combining magical elements on the fly to create hundreds of spell combinations with wildly varying effects.

And so it was that August 30th, 2013 did come to be known as the Day of The Deals. Internet denizens bravely descended on their stores, dodging pay-what-you-want here, and 75% off there. Could any make it through this budgetary gauntlet with their wallets unharmed? That, dear reader, is for you to find out...

Look, basically what I'm saying is there are a lot of cheap games today. The first of which is a staggeringly good Humble Weekly Sale featuring entrées from the Paradox plate.

Here's what's inside:

War of the Roses: KingmakerWarlock: Master of the ArcaneLeviathan: WarshipsDungeonlandThe Showdown EffectEuropa Universalis III Complete

And, if you beat the average (currently at $5.80):

Crusader Kings IIMagicka

Taken as a full bundle, it's an absurdly good deal. Of the games that I've spent much time with: Crusader Kings II is an excellent strategy centred on lineage and intrigue, Magicka is a satisfying and funny co-op wizard-'em-up, and Warlock is a quick 'n light action-focused 4X. All of the others have reviewed reasonably well, too.

Alternatively, you could get "The Big Kahuna", which costs a flat $125, but comes with 48 games - essentially, all of the publisher's games, with the exception of Europa Universalis IV. The downside of that deal is that you also get Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, but it's okay, you can just ignore it.

Imagine a game of Dota 2 in which everyone on both teams is playing Invoker, set on League of Legends' Dominion map, and you'll have a rough idea of the general PvP insanity that is Magicka: Wizard Wars. Combining a handful of arcane elements in three-key invocations, the object is to work with your team to secure all three of the radially-placed control points on the map, preventing the enemy from respawning. I found myself thrust into the middle of it all, a simple country skull-basher with little in the way of magical education, to blast, soak, and zap my way through a 4v4 with a few other journalists and some of the game's developers. It took less than 10 minutes to become terminally on fire.Wizard Wars eschews enough of the standard fare to dodge the "MOBA" label—minions don't play much of a role, and towers, in-game shops, and ability leveling are nonexistent. What it has in common with the Dota-likes, however, is the fact that I found myself calculating odds and planning ahead to the next potential team fight every time I wasn't actively engaged in freezing or burning an enemy conjurer's non-face off. As a matter of fact, Wizard Wars is probably one of the most cognitive games of its kind I've ever played. Magicka's elements interact realistically with one another, allowing you to designate a team-mate as "Fire Extinguisher Guy."Among the spells your wizard can cast is a shield that can give you 50 percent resistance to two different elements, or make you immune to one. I found that a large part of winning the game was anticipating what elements I was most likely to get hit with from which players, and tuning my shield accordingly before the first shot was fired. An enemy's active shield is displayed by colored rings around his feet, meaning that one-on-one fights often become a dance of juggling attack and defense elements until somebody's rock bashes up the other's scissors. Things get even more complicated when you factor in attacks using multiple elements, as well as special combos that can create area effects, impede movement, or block enemy projectiles altogether.Outside of a match, you can customize your wizard's gear (Staff, Robes, Melee Weapon, and a trinket of some sort), as well as his roster of Magicks. Magicks are non-elemental special skills which can be used once you've built up a fighting game-esque super meter—the devs cited Street Fighter as a big inspiration for Wizard Wars' combat. Magicks become progressively more powerful as you fill more of the bar, culminating in being able to drop a meteor storm that can (and in one match, did) kill the entire enemy team in one shot. Or, you know, your entire team. This is Magicka, after all. Friendly fire is enabled in all of its rage-inducing glory, adding one more element you need to keep track of in big teamfights. Holding these glowy circles depletes your enemies' respawn tickets. Holding them all prevents respawning entirely.With all of its layers of complexity, Paradox North is taking a surprisingly simple framework and building a tactically complex and fairly unique PvP experience. More of your important decisions are moved out of the item shop and ability bar, and onto the battlefield, creating a meta that has more to do with intuition and mind games than optimization and spreadsheets. If you'd like to leap into the cloak-clothed fray yourself, sign-ups for the alpha have already begun. According to Paradox, the game will "probably" launch free-to-play, and a founder's program is under consideration.